Tom's dagger tumbles through the air, sailing blade over hilt between two heads towards the beast before them. It lands hilt first on the side of the owlbear's head, hitting with an audible KNOCK.

The beast turns its head suddenly towards the blade, expecting some sort of attacker to be there but instead exposing her neck to a spear jab from the tall woman. The blade punctures through hide and skin and the owlbear tries to violently shake her; snapping the spear shaft in two. It's growling screeches are a mix of anguish and anger, gurgling weakly with blood.

The men close in, bludgeoning and stabbing at the creature as its screeching becomes less and less audible. In the end there is no sound but the repeated attacks from the men.

Beside them a human form bounces off of a low branch and falls to the ground, broken and bloodied. It is the beast man, Uydr. He does not move. A moment later the larger form of the male owlbear lands atop him. It lands limply atop him and struggles slowly to stand, whimpering and screeching in anguish.

It gets to its feet and cries out again in a tortured screech, a bone protrudes from its shoulder. It moves with a speed that belies its condition; charging forward two steps and tearing out a horses stomach and moving on to another. He jumps at another, getting up on his hind legs and coming down upon its back; its fore talons burying into the horse flanks causing it to rear back and throw the tracker Yornok from his steed.

The other horses in the area move nervously, some turning around in an effort to run; controlling the animals becomes an exceedingly difficult task. An arrow come flying forward, landing in the beasts shoulder beside the protruding bone. It screeches again and returns to a four-legged stance; screeching another loud roar.

Roll a percentile. If you are within- 35 of my number you will wake up in incredible pain unable to move disoriented as all get-out and vomiting-20 of my number you will wake up in pain, disoriented, and unable to walk without falling.-10 of my number and you will have mild pain and limited disorientation and a slight lack of coordination.

Tom cringes at what his actions soon lead to, appalled at the sight of the villagers and hired swords brutally ganging up on the owlbear and snuffing out its life, necessary though it is. His eyes linger on the bloodied, lifeless form of the creature in shock - that is, until the sound of someone crashing to earth snaps him out of it. He looks up in time to see something else hit the ground; the dead owlbear’s mate. When it stands up and lets out its suffer-laden cry, white bone visible near its shoulder, and attacks a horse, the young lad flees in the other direction, no longer armed. He sees his horse has become skittish again in response and makes to catch it before it can run off successfully this time.

By now, he’s lost track of where Olaf is, assuming him to be in the middle of the chaos behind him.

Fe shudders to watch the Knight, and the others mutilate the owlbear. It was protecting its young and now the babies had no mother. The father owlbear comes tumbling out of the tree, along with the man-creature Uydr. Uydr isn't moving but the owlbear attacks the nearest horse in spite of its broken shoulder. The poor creature is suffering and makes its way through the crowd of people bumping into them, and perhaps hurting a few. She knew what she had to do, in order to prove herself to the Knight and save the creature from pain and suffering. She gets its attention by throwing a rock at it, hoping to draw it toward her. She flips the dagger in her hand so she's holding the blade and throws it dead on at the creature's neck hoping that it stuck and ends its suffering quickly and quietly.

Both Tom and his mount were still shaken when they stopped running. A shrieking roar and cries of men told him how to get back. His horse paced them nercously in a circle. The beast let out a final, anguished shriek and then notihng more.

Soon the sound of another rider approached. He looked up to find the farmer, Mejan, slowing to a trot and pulling up beside you; your own horse whinneying upon their arrival.

"Are you alright?" Mejan asked hesitantly.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Uydr practically fell to the ground at the base of the tree and soon he slipped into unconciousness, oblivious to the danger near him as the owlbear reaked havoc on the nearby men, knocking another from his horse and tearing out his innards in one swipe of its beak.

An archer shot two shafts into the creatures' back and it spun in his direction, but before the beast could make a move for him, the tall barbarian woman stabbed at it. The owlbear got up on its hindlegs again and roared with a shrill shreaking sound. It came down on the woman, both sets of talons tearing into her flesh.

The creature landed on the ground and fell quickly forward on its broken shouolder, slamming into the ground.

A fair sized rock hit the creature in the eye and it cried out, getting quickly back to it's feet, standing gingerly on its wounded arm. The beast finds the young lady who threw the stone quickly. Fefe stands waiting for the creature, holding her dagger by the blade. As the owlbear starts moving toward her she throws the blade, it sails to the animal, tip of the blade finding flesh beneath the feathers and fur. The creature lets out a painful shriek, it takes a few clumbsy steps forward and falls to the ground, losing blood from its neck and shoulder and various other internal injuries.

The guard from Grey Lake steps forward and opens the creatures throat before it can react, finishing the owlbear off.

"Well done," Sir Reinhold declares. He looks around. Two men and three horses were dead and one was badly injured. They hadn't even reached what they'd set out for yet!

"If any of you are having second thoughts about this adventure, speak so now," Reinhold said to the group.

The third young man from Grey Lake cleared his throat nervously. "I speak so," he said.

"Good," the knight replied. "Take the beast man with you and make haste. He needs a priest."

The tracker, Yornok joins the guard from Grey Lake on his horse.

"Let's move then," the knight says, preparing to spur his horse.

"Wait," comes the gravely voice of the big man from the inn. "Where's the boy?" he asks. "Has anyone seen Tom?"

As the owlbear fell from her nearly perfect throw, Edge watched as another man finished off the poor thing. She walked over to the creature to retrieve her dagger and wiped off the blood from it on the grass. She looked up to see the others staggered and shaken, she would feel the same if it wasn't for Sir Reinhold yelling at her. Edge looked for him, but he was already past her and mounted onto a horse. She walked in his direction and muttered the likes of "how was that for killing some dumb animal", then walked over to where one of his fellow knights was offering a horse for her to ride. She mounted behind the other man, and continued to glare at him. Edge may have been young, but she was no child and refused to be treated like one!

When someone shouted where the boy Tom was, she blinked and looked around. He had vanished? Edge was worried, he seemed like such a cute fellow. A small sigh escaped her lips, and she dismounted. The last they'd seen of him, was him throwing his knife at the first owlbear, then walking backwards with his horse. The man named Olaf was supposed to be protecting him, and she hadn't seen a sign of him anywhere. She found Sir Reinhold and looked up at him as she was on the ground, and he on a horse. "Seems as if our group is scattered... We have to find the boy. Who knows what other horrors lurk among these woods." she looked down and shook her head, she knew the response she would get from the Knight. Another remark about her being a child, right? Well, whatever the case may be, she began looking at footprints to determine where the boy might have gone.

In response to Mejan’s question, Tom struggles but fails to hold back a sudden outpour of angry tears.

“I killed it! I did it, me, it’s my fault! Why didn’t you do it, why’d it have to be me?!” he demands, growing angrier at his own display of emotion. He squeezes his eyes shut tight and holds his head in his hands in shame.

“It was just a stupid owlbear… ain’t nothin’ against a dragon and I near pissed myself over it. That’s the…” he pauses, sniffles, “the scariest thing’s ever happened to me…” he breathes in, deep, “I thought we were all gonna die…”

He lies forward against the horse’s long neck once again, burying his face in its mane. “Gods, when they killed it,” he whimpers, “It's not like in them stories and ballads. It was horrible… and I caused it. Me.”

The farmer moves his horse up beside the boy and rests a hand on the weeping child's shoulder. "It's alright," Mejan tells him. "They were going to kill her regardless," he says. "If anything, you made it's death quicker and less painful by exposing it with your throw."

He does what he can to console the boy; sorrow and anguish are emotions Mejan has become intimately familiar with of late, so he knows a thing or two about what Tom is going through.

"Listen," he says; "Let's head back to the others. It sounds like the ordeal is over now. Just don't look at the owlbears when we get back."

[OOC for Dreamshell: Feel free to insert whatever dialogue you wish, you can even make Mejan say whatever you want (within reason), and then start heading back to the others.]

[OOC for Fefe: Reinhold is the only knight, I'll assume you're referring to the guard who helped you put the owlbear out of its misery, unless you have some objections regarding this]

Fefe, scanning the area; spots two sets of horse tracks leading away from the carnage. (ooc: everyone is on horseback) The tracks are fresh and she deduces that one of them is the horse that Tom rode. She assumes briefly that the other horse belongs to Olaf, that is until she see's Olaf looking around with a concerned look on his face.

[OOC (ALL): We're winding down on this thread. Since it's only the two of you, as soon as both of you update, I'll post the next update within a day or two. This can become a more rapidly updating thread which of course means we'll reach our destination sooner. We'll be making camp for the night on my next update, and will likely reach our destination on the next one or two updates.]

Soon enough Tom comes back, riding beside the farmer. Olaf gives him a stern look that says there will be much to talk about later.

Most of the party presses on, scouts leading the way; a few hang back to deal with the bear corpses. The sun starts to set conveniently while the group is in an grassy meadow in the middle of the forest. Preparations were made for camp. Raven, the slender man all in black, approaches the athletic gypsy.

"Ever do any scouting work?" He asks Edge.

Olaf has Tom help him gather wood, the big man making short work of a couple dead trees with his ax. The boy does his best to avoid whatever talk Olaf is going to give him. Eventually they take a short breather, just the two of them in the wood. Neither talk for a while until the old combat veteran speaks up at last.